Ad Campaigns
Aprilia shows two can have fun on its bike
MUMBAI: Staying with the idea of fun being integral to its product’s personality, Soho Square Mumbai has created a new campaign for Aprilia to launch its latest bike SR 125.
The SR 125 bike is especially designed for Indian riding habits where bikers often ride with a pillion passenger. A host of features like longer seats, raised grab handles, 125cc engine and 14-inch wheels make it an enjoyable ride for two.
The ad campaign, led by the TV commercial, takes us on a fun ride where eccentric characters find their fun-twin while riding the bike. Two superheroes, retro kings and beat-boxers are seen in pairs grooving to a hip track as they ride the new bike together. It’s an interesting approach that aims to stand out amidst other similar category advertising and appeal to the young consumers.
Soho Square Mumbai, the creative house behind the idea, has created the integrated campaign involving TV, print, outdoor and digital communication around the idea.
Soho Square Mumbai executive creative director and creative head Anuraag Khandelwal says, “We believe that the best way to have fun is with a companion, and the bike with its features enables one to do just that -have fun with a like-minded person. In the commercial we’ve shown how various people find their ‘Funtwins’ in the most unexpected situations.”
Commenting on the objective behind the film, Piaggio CEO and MD Diego Graffi adds, “The two-wheeler segment is very important to us in terms of growth. With the addition of the SR 125, we are well poised to better serve the Indian markets. This communication will surely help us in doing so.”
NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.
At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.
“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”
One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.
AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.
Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.
Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.
Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.
Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.
